Starigrad Roots Starigrad on the Dalmatian Island of Hvar in Croatia is a town dating back to about 384 BC. If you visit this beautiful ancient place, you will certainly walk along one of the main streets called Duonja Kola and notice two old houses. One has the date 1602 incised on the top of its stone doorway, and opposite is the other house, dated 1566, built in transitional Gothic-Renaissance style. It has a niche by the door which evidently once contained a crucifix, now long gone, but which still bears a Latin inscription: DOMINE IHESV CHRISTE FILI DEI VIVI QVI IN CRVCE PEPENDISTI ET SANGVINEM TVVM PRO HVMANA NATVRA FVDISTI MISERERE POPVLO TVO MDLXVI (Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, who hung on the cross, and spilt your blood for the human race: have mercy on your people 1566, with grateful thanks to Dr. Bojan Bujić for the translation.) Both houses belonged to my mother’s family. But as long as I could remember my grandmother’s sister lived in the 1602 house, since the older one was abandoned and without a roof. The interior of the family house was a time capsule typical of a better-off family from the 19th century, with elegant furniture, lace curtains, Venetian brass oil lamps, Art Nouveau chandeliers, painted and embroidered silk hangings in the same style. The English ceramics, particularly the washing basins and ewers, fascinated me with their elaborate decorations of Chinese myths, fantasy landscapes, flowers and foliage.
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Until the late 1960’s I used to visit the last inhabitants of the house, my great aunt Marija and her strange husband Luka, a divorcé, whom she married in later life, after decades of mourning for her fiancé who disappeared in the Great War. Luka had a “bracera” a large wooden boat on which he transported oil, wine and other produce from Starigrad to Split, but also worked in a family vineyard and fields. He was quite an eccentric man, devoted to his ‘ugota’ – his mule – that to prevent flies biting her legs, he would cover them with the beautiful cotton stockings that Marija had knitted and crocheted in elaborate patterns in her youth as part of her trousseau. ‘Ugota’ lived in style in the 1566 historic ruin. Every day she walked with Luka in her luxury hosiery along the streets of Starigrad to the fields. It amused everybody, and Luka and his ‘ugota’ are still remembered long after their deaths. When Marija and Luka died, the descendants sold both houses in 1984 and the new owners opened a bar-restaurant called ‘Antika’ on the premises. I am glad that the joy of cooking still continues there among photographs of my great-grandfather and some other family mementoes that were left on the walls. What is now a kitchen, on the spacious ground floor, was once my great-grandfather’s Nicolo Boglić’s textile, haberdashery, shoes and leather goods shop. As a young man Nicolo went to the United States and came back with enough savings to start a business and soon became a respected businessman trading with firms and manufacturers in Vienna and Graz. He was married to Marija Ivanišević in 1879. Nicolo and Marija had five children, three girls Flora, Korina and Marija and two boys. The older son Toma went to the United States, like his father, but fell ill and died there. The younger son Bartul went to Prague and Zagreb to study pharmacy, and after graduating he worked as a pharmacist in Zadar, Šibenik and Dubrovnik. The girls were all educated at the local school, and judging by the amount of fine embroidery, silk paintings and lace that still belongs to the family, they did well. Korina particularly who showed artistic tallent and continued her education at the college in Split and then in Florence. I always admired my grandmother’s Flora hand written cookery compendium which had beautifully written titles of the dishes, and an index of sections cut in the margins of a large notebook. It shows Flora’s serious interest in learning cooking. I also enjoyed looking through the album of postcards, which revealed her social life and friendships.
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